The strangest thing you've caught

Aside from actual fish what has been the strangest thing you landed? The mate fished Teelin Pier during the summer and wound in a brand new angling chair complete with drinks holder!

Pete

a rod and reel 9ft rood and had to have only been there a day or 2

My brother,

A pile of leads, hooks, swivells, booms etc. It's what started out my fishing career.....I was fishing Rosstoonstown with a cruddy rod & reel with line that looked like extreme shock leader material :D I cast out and pulled in this nest of line and gear you would not believe! I think this "bounty" from the sea had a lasting effect! - Those hooks do disintigrate - fell apart in my hands some of them.

A pile of leads, hooks, swivells, booms etc. It's what started out my fishing career.....I was fishing Rosstoonstown with a cruddy rod & reel with line that looked like extreme shock leader material :D I cast out and pulled in this nest of line and gear you would not believe! I think this "bounty" from the sea had a lasting effect! - Those hooks do disintigrate - fell apart in my hands some of them.

The strangest thing i ever caught was a 12ib conger of melmore head while tryin to catch bait on hokkais from the rocks. When retreving the line full of small pollack the rod all of a sudden went dead i thought to myself not another snag so i walked backwards with the rod and all of a sudden i was reeling in a ton weight with the light spinning rod bent to the middle section. Wat came to the surface a conger with a pollack tail hanging out its mouth and the hokkai trace wrapped around it from head to tail. Has this ever happened to anyone are conger known for such behaviour?

Over the years I've caught 2 seagulls and a pochard (http://www.rspb.org.uk/birds/guide/p/pochard/index.asp)

Seagull No 1 was caught years ago off Camden pier in Crosshaven, Co Cork.
Was spinning for mackerel when a gull dived on my german sprat and hooked himself - I was about 13 at the time, nearly s**t meself. Had to haul him in, up the pier wall and with lots of help from some adults unhooked him and threw him back - catch 'n' release policy :D - he flapped about in the water for a while and then flew off !

Seagull No 2 was caught last year off the pier in Monkstown, Co Cork. Again spinning for macks. Managed to hit a seagull with my cast in mid-air ! He got all tangled up - had to haul him in and cut him free - jeez was he cross !

The best one so far was the pochard (first I heard of it too - it's a small diving duck)
Ground fishing off the north beach in Greystones 2 weeks ago - had cast out the beachcaster and was spinning with the second rod. All of a sudden lots of commotion with the duck 40 yds out - the little git had got himself all tangled up in my line. Getting used to it by now - so I started to haul him in, as I got him out of the water and on to the shingle, a dog, who had been out for a walk with his master spots the duck and comes barrelling down the beach ! The poor duck was not having a good day - anyhow just before the dog got to him he managed to get free and immediately dived in to the surf and surfaced about 30 yds out - whatever he did he managed to snap 20 lb line !

Bit of an authority on catching birds I am !

Best Regards

Aidan

Managed to hook a small shearwater type thing last time out on "The Cricket" with fellow forumers. Only thing that distinguished this from the rest of the unfortunate seabirds I have hooked over the years was that it attacked a Shad about 20 metres under the water! There was the gull that attacked a jellyworm that was clipped to the spinning rod while we were steaming out on the previous trip out with Pat. Bloody Donegal birds, they have all the survival instincts of depressed lemmings!

As previously described on the forum...a bag full of dead kittens.

Not going in to anymore detail this time, I'm still a little disturbed by it!

where did you get the kittens?! :shock:

gannets put up a good scrap on a 12lb class rod fishing mackerel! the same day a mate caught what i think was a guillemot fishing for plaice on the bottom!

A seagull, swan and a wet blanket!!

The snapped up remains of a boat rod in Florida that must have been in at least the 80lb class..........god knows what broke it.

And a seagull in mid flight off the pier in Torquay.

Fishing off Ventry Pier in the Summer Darkness, catching only the customary dogfish (sole exception - the smallest conger I have ever seen, thought it was a sand eel first!). Friend got a rattle and hauled in, lifted a ghostly white shape onto the Pier, two of us looked down on what looked like some kind of milky white mammal with hands!. Flipped it over and saw that it was a monkfish, with the tail end neatly bitten off, half we had weighed about 10lbs so whatever took the rest had to be mean!. Disgusting think started to stench so we chucked it back and scarpered, gave the two of us the willies :lol: between the smell, the jaws, half a stomach - need I go on. Most nightmarish thing I have ever seen.

the strangest thing I caught was chilled kidneys and back pain, fishing with a Certain Person off Dun Laoghaire pier!!
I'll never let him forget it. :roll: [/i]

2 Bats, a prophylactic device & a packet of Johnson's baby wipes.

(Had to moderate that a bit - but where were you fishing? Doesn't sound like the sea I know :lol: ...Sandman)

An otter while flyfishing for trout, but lost him at the net.......hehe. Caught a bat night fishing for sea trout, all claws and wing....

Didn't some guy catch a bale of ******** while fishing in the Liffey this year? Called the guards and the sub-aqua unit got a shed load of the stuff some dealer had hidden in the river. Read something about it in the papers...

yes that story is true bout the ********.thats got to be the strangest of all things :lol:

Have successfully done battle with a fair array of seabirds but the swan that Markj mentioned would be a good 'tussle', did it try and bite you or simply beat you with its wings? Or did try a few combinations?

Pete

I actually caught a shoe before - thought I was in a bloody cartoon!
Also caught a duckling & a swan.

My friend had the line wrapped around his arm while trying to untangle the swan & the it took off & almost pulled him in. Precious!

Also reeled in a plastic bag while bait fishing for trout. I had hooked a trout unknowingly & he was actually inside the plastic bag.

2 Bats, a prophylactic device & a packet of Johnson's baby wipes.

(Had to moderate that a bit - but where were you fishing? Doesn't sound like the sea I know :lol: ...Sandman)

Cork Harbour.